


Curiosity's Consuming Fire

by Im_The_Doctor (Bofur1)



Series: Culture Shock [3]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Amnesia, Bittersweet Ending, Claiming, Classic Who, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Heartbreak, Interspecies Romance, Love Confessions, Mind Control, Mind Meld, Protectiveness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-24
Updated: 2014-11-24
Packaged: 2018-02-26 20:36:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2665520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bofur1/pseuds/Im_The_Doctor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor will do anything to find his companion when he loses her.</p><p>
  <em>“Do you wish to return to the Doctor?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“No,” Sarah Jane denied the thought off-handedly, as though brushing away a stray lock of hair. The brief response made the Doctor falter slightly in his step.<em></em></em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Curiosity's Consuming Fire

_Where is she?_

She was standing next to Radaged’s throne when the Doctor threw open the doors of the dim room. “You are going to release Sarah to me,” he said caustically as he strode toward the overlord, barely glancing at the two guards coming upon him as he downed them with single blows to their throats.

“Oh, am I?” Radaged mused derisively. “I might do just that, but it depends on her.” Never breaking eye contact with the Time Lord, he asked the girl beside him, “Do you wish to return to the Doctor?”

“No,” Sarah Jane denied the thought off-handedly, as though brushing away a stray lock of hair. The brief response made the Doctor falter slightly in his step.

“My dear girl,” the Doctor started nervously, “why wouldn’t you? We can go back to the TARDIS - keep traveling - ”

“I want to stay here,” she cut him off, frowning and shifting slightly closer to the arm of the throne. “With Radaged.”

Tearing his eyes away from hers, the Doctor glared thunderously at the offending subject. “You’ve done something to her!”

“The only thing he did to me, Doctor, is show me that I could have a stable life - a stable _love_ \- here,” Sarah Jane sighed, moving toward the stairs leading down to him. Radaged grabbed her shoulder, but she shook him off, mouthing what looked to the Doctor like “I’ll be fine” before coming down to stand in front of him on the bottom step.

“I thought I enjoyed this life of yours, Doctor,” she continued, “but it was just curiosity, all of it. I was curious about you and now I’m satisfied. I know who you are, how you live, and now...” The Doctor hated the way Sarah’s eyes lit up as she leaned in and whispered excitedly, “I’m curious again! I want to know Radaged now, I want to know how he lives, and I might even want to share it with him!”

“But what about Earth?” the Doctor asked, aghast. “What about your home?”

Sarah Jane gestured around them. “I feel quite homely here.”

“Sarah, he’s changed you somehow,” the Doctor pleaded, reaching toward her and then thinking better of it. “You love the adventures we have, you love the TARDIS. You love...I _thought_ you loved...” His voice was growing smaller, tripping over the tiny, dreadful word that came last.

“Maybe you should have asked sooner,” Sarah Jane told him solemnly. “A while ago, it was true; I did love - ” She stopped suddenly, her face contorting in confusion. “I did...I do love - ”

Radaged, rising from his throne and coming down a few steps toward her, demanding, “What’s wrong?”

The Doctor was wondering the same thing as his companion looked over her shoulder at the overlord and then back at him, her brows knitting. “I’m not supposed to say that,” she murmured hollowly, as though speaking something she had memorized a long time ago. “I can’t say it; he would never believe me.”

“Who?” the Doctor asked urgently, cut off by Radaged’s cold laughter.

“Despite that lie, Sarah, I think your love is mine for the taking. And _my_ love is just waiting, waiting to turn those tears of yours to roses.”

The Doctor saw then with alarm that she _was_ crying, but not as she usually did - she was completely silent as the tears streamed down her pale cheeks, lips parted slightly as though she wanted to speak but couldn’t. He leaned forward, wanting to pull her to him, but Radaged caught her first, using her arm to drag her up the steps next to him.

“You’ll be cherished here, my dear. I’ll be the one that’s going to hold you, the one you’ll run to when you’re scared...my love is a consuming fire.”

“It will _scald_ you,” the Doctor added bitterly, “whatever it is. Not love, that’s certain.”

“I want to go to the Doctor, I think,” Sarah Jane announced in a hurried breath, tugging against Radaged’s grip. “Just for a moment - ”

“You feel so lonely and ragged, but you don’t need to be,” Radaged assured her. “I can’t wait to be the one to care for you and guide you.”

“He’ll guide you like a puppet!” the Doctor spat. “But come with me and I won’t let him. Think, Sarah. When people like him come, you’ll never be alone; I’ll never leave you. When darkness comes, you know I’m never far.”

“I know,” Sarah agreed anxiously. “And I want to go with you.”

“Of course he’s never far from the darkness,” Radegad scorned. “He brings it. You told me that you could never have a day of rest with this man; he constantly courts chaos! Do you want that to be your life forever, always at risk of being lost in his darkness?”

Sarah cringed, her arm shivering in Radegad’s hold as his fingers cut bruises into the muscle. “I can’t...I can’t have my life be that way,” she choked out, her eyes falling to the floor. “I need a promise that it won’t be that way. Can you give me that, Doctor?”

It was an impossible promise, the Doctor realized. Radegad knew it too, baring his teeth gleefully behind Sarah’s bowed head.

“No,” the Doctor answered in a croak. “I can’t promise that.” He watched Sarah’s delicate throat as she swallowed a lump of tears and stumbled backward up the steps.

“Then I’ll stay.”

“But if it ever happens, if I ever do lose you,” the Doctor continued desperately, “I’ll do anything I can to find you. I’ll light up the entire sky if I have to!”

“How can he promise such things?” Radegad scoffed. “He’s one old, weak man who is too cowardly to make one promise to you. After all you’ve been through, one promise isn’t too much to ask, is it? But he still can’t give it to you.”

The Doctor leapt onto the steps, snatching up Sarah Jane’s free right hand, trying to disregard how it shook. “My life may not be the stablest, but you’ve known that ever since we met! Still you came with me and those things you went through, we went through them together. That’s the promise of any love - platonic or otherwise,” he shoved in quickly, “isn’t it? We go through everything together?”

Sarah nodded jerkily but remained where she was, her hand small and lax in his. His mind raced with the many things he wanted to say, but it was racing so fast that he couldn’t seize any one of those thoughts and speak it. He just stood there with his hearts thrashing against each other in his chest, dumb in mind and tongue, holding her hand.

Something he had only just said suddenly struck the wall in his mind, plastering itself there like flypaper. “It’s happening now,” the Doctor burst out breathlessly. “I’m losing you now!”

“If you didn’t realize that before, you’re stupider than I thought,” Radegad sneered.

“No, _you_ are,” the Doctor snapped back venomously. “I said I would do anything to find her. Now I must!” Drawing himself toward his companion with the tether of his hand, the Doctor bent forward and pressed his forehead against Sarah Jane’s, throwing himself against the mental doors between them.

“ _I love you, Sarah_ ,” he called urgently, rattling the lock on the door his mind’s eye found. “ _I’m not saying it to make conversation or out of habit, even though I’ve said it in my own mind a thousand times. I’m saying it because you have to remember that you’re the best thing that’s happened to me!_ ”

The door remained closed, the lock cold in his fingers. The Doctor’s voice died along with the strength in his knees. He sank down in front of the door, staring at the lock on it as though he could force it open with his eyes.

“ _I love you_ ,” he repeated mournfully. “ _Let me love you..._ ”

The force of the door striking him as it swung open was like lightning. When the Doctor came to his physical body, he found himself flat on his back on the floor of the throne room. Sarah Jane’s face swam before his eyes. “Doctor, can you hear me?”

“Are you alright?” the Doctor asked, struggling onto his elbows.

“That’s what I’m supposed to ask you,” Sarah reminded him worriedly. “One minute I was facing that king...what was his name? Anyway, I was standing in front of his throne, talking to him, and then the next I’m facing the other way and you’re out cold on the ground in front of me!”

The Doctor blinked in disbelief. “You don’t remember?”

Sarah shook her head minutely as she helped him sit up. “But... _you_ remember,” she said. It wasn’t a question, but she was clearly expecting him to share.

The Doctor pursed his lips and glanced away. How could he explain the vulnerability he had shared with her? In this glance he noticed a smooth wall where the throne had been. It must have been a revolving mechanism or a teleport, the Doctor realized fleetingly, noting the overlord’s absence.

“What is it?” Sarah Jane persisted. Her nose scrunched up the way the Doctor had always liked...loved. “Did I do anything stupid?”

“No,” the Doctor said after a long, silent moment, rising to his feet. “No, Sarah, of course you didn’t. Let’s get back to the TARDIS.”

“If I didn’t do anything stupid, surely you can tell me what happened!” Sarah whined, shoving her shoulder against his as he started walking.

The Doctor forced a smile despite the crumbling sensation in his chest. “Ever so curious, aren’t you?”

“Yes!”

“Well, good. I don’t ever want you to change.” ** **  
****  
  


End file.
